Two hours had passed.
Kivas sat on a fallen tree, legs propped up, swaddled in makeshift bandages fashioned from her own regenerating clothing.
She leaned back against a trunk split by fire, eyes half-lidded, listening to the strange quiet of Vaingall's wilderness. The air smelled sharp and cold, like iron and burnt ether.
As of now, Samael had gone hunting.
Before she vanished into the treeline, Samael had promised food—after bluntly declaring that she wasn't going to let her "accursed Fateling" starve if she wanted answers. Not yet, anyway. Something about "If you die, I don't get to learn what you did to me."
That seemed to be the cornerstone of their temporary alliance.
And before Samael's departure, Kivas had since learned more about Fathomi. Or rather, she'd been told a few things.
Fathomi wasn't a world in the conventional sense—more like a cradle of existential density, a realm where things simply were, and remained.
To put it simply, living conscious beings didn't age, not unless something forced them to. In this world, time passed, but it didn't decay its inhabitants into a state of entropy.
This would mean that Kivas would barely age or change in appearance too unless something was forcefully manipulating it.
As such, inhabitants of Fathomi didn't care about time. As Samael herself proclaimed, they cared for wisdom, for power, and for permanence of essence.
And that essence was recorded, accessed, and shaped through a compact medium called the Well of the Soul.
"Samael cut her explanation short after she realized that her stomach is burned empty alongside the transformation," Kivas mumbled as she gazed into her Well of the Soul. "I haven't known much about these things I'm seeing."
To Kivas, Well of the Soul was basically an RPG stat screen. She still didn't know what most of the entries meant, but at least she had deciphered two of the most confusing before Samael had left.
Case number one, Her HP and MP bars never moved.
Her pre-assumption about these two stats was that they were Health Point, the denominator of one's health—and Magic Point or Mana Point, the amount of fuel meant to perform magical stuff.
And at one point, she even used to think that was a bug. Now she knew better.
"Whoever made this part to be abbreviated instead of spelling the entire thing needs to be fired."
HP stood for Hemo Psyche, the fuel of her ability to imbue and transform herself, her blood, her strength, and those of other living beings. It was the boundary of self-infusion, the spiritual battery for affecting herself or others on a soul-deep level and physical level.
And MP was Mana Psyche, the latent reservoir of her will's power to influence the world.
Both were stable this whole time because they weren't utilized at all, because Kivas didn't possess any means or skills that could siphon them from her existence.
"They are basically Mana Points but for two different skill categories, heh."
Still, those bars barely scratched the surface of the complexity. Samael had told her—some things, or in this case, skills, just ignore those rules.
Kivas' Fate Weaver skill operated like that.
It didn't draw from Hemo Psyche or Mana Psyche in a traditional sense. Instead, it resonated with what makes existence.
Its output depended on its level, on intent, and apparently, proximity to fate-altering events.
"As expected, I'm a walking causality nightmare~"
Branches snapped in the underbrush, something was approaching.
Kivas raised her head just as Samael stepped back into the clearing, dragging a monstrous corpse behind her.
"Samael!" Kivas waved her hand. "Welcome… back?"
The corpse was long. Centipede-like. Glossy black and purple. At least two meters of pulsing, segmented carapace and rows of slitted eyes. Its legs were gone—torn off at the stumps—and its mouth was a shattered beak lined with twitching feelers.
Samael hoisted it up with one arm, then tossed it down beside the fire pit with a wet thud. She wiped her face with the back of her hand.
Fun fact, the firepit was lit using Kivas' flaming halo.
"Meal time," Samael said, voice casual. "Us unpowered beings of this world should feast on other living beings aplenty to get stronger."
Kivas blinked. "And that's what you want to get?"
"I said that I'm searching for food, no?"
"You said food. Not a nightmare millipede."
"As much as it's not within your palate, it's one of the least poisonous beings in Vaingall," Samael replied, crouching beside the corpse. Her eyes gleamed in the firelight. "In fact, it's surprisingly edible. Lean protein, nourishing. Lots of soul-sustaining marrow."
"Appetizing, yeah, I can hear myself wanting to gag," Kivas muttered, nose wrinkling. "What even is this thing, again?"
"A minor Voidling that I barely care about the name of. An annoying pest. I've wanted to kill it for years, but it kept hiding in rifts." Samael inspected one of the segments and reached for the cinquedea she'd borrowed earlier for the hunt. "Took me three near-deaths to put it down."
"Wait, you almost died three times?" Kivas sat upright, alarmed. "You can't die just yet, you know! I need someone to babysit me until I'm well!"
"I'm the one who almost died, why are you the one who rile…?" Samael was awestruck. "And for the wrong reason too—"
"That aside, how are you still fine now?" Kivas questioned.
"I used what was left of my Hemo Psyche." Samael continued her meal prepping. "Don't worry, I'll teach you about everything you need to know."
As she spoke, the corpse twitched.
Kivas jolted. "Uhh. Samael. It just moved."
The beak of the centipede cracked open.
"You… dare… wear the name of Samael…!" the centipede Voidling hissed in a shrill voice, distorted and warped like gurgling gravel. "You… human... you disgrace the name of the eternal. I'll kill you—!"
Samael's expression didn't shift. She casually flipped the cinquedea in her hand and drove it into the thing's mouth.
There was a crunch, a squelch, and then a muffled scream as black ichor pooled from its maw.
"... Did that Voidling somehow revive itself just now?" Kivas gawked.
"It wasn't even dead to begin with." Samael yanked the blade back out and wiped it on the centipede's shell. "Voidlings of that breed can segment their vitality. I ruptured enough of them that it couldn't fight nor move for a while, but its core didn't fade."
"You were planning to eat something that was still alive?!" Kivas then realized what Samael was before she transformed into this one beautiful and wise woman. "Nevermind, I forgot what you are."
"You're also going to eat it too, you know?"
"I'm thankful for the gesture." Kivas smiled wide, happy with how Samael seemed to care about her. "But that's not my kind of food."
"This is not a suggestion, you need to eat it." Samael snapped a leg segment free from the creature's thorax. It detached with a wet pop, wriggling slightly in her grip. She held it out toward Kivas, the jointed end twitching like a severed muscle. "Here. The marrow's still warm."
Kivas recoiled. "Can you at least tell me why this is necessary to begin with? I already ate before we met…"
"I still haven't taught you much about how the Well of the Soul works" Samael said innocently. "Alongside the method to accumulate strength. We can start on that, when you took your first bite."
"The damn thing is still moving!"
"You'll get used to it."
"That is not reassuring at all!"
Samael sighed and sat beside her on the log, placing the leg across Kivas' lap. "You need to understand something, Fateling."
"Here we go…" Kivas muttered.
Samael ignored her. "Fathomi isn't this Earth you talked about earlier. Things don't die the same way. Things don't live the same way. You're used to food being sterilized and dissected. Here, life is persistent. It clings. Even death is more of a transition than an end."
Kivas stared at the twitching limb, then back at Samael. "I barely even told you much about the place I came from before I got here as a Fateling, why are you talking like you have gone to Earth yourself?"
"Don't need to go there, I can already tell what kind of world that you lived in." Samael snickered. "Besides, you're not the only one who possesses a memory of their former life in their own respective former world. A reincarnator, so we say, those who found a new vessel in Fathomi."
"Are you saying that you're the same as me?"
"No, I met many entities who possess those circumstances."
"And here I thought that my soulmate could relate to me a little…"
"Empathy is the essence of intelligent beings. It can simply be done through putting pieces of your own experience and wisdom, not the reliance of a complete replication."
"Huh, you're more human than I thought."
"Now that you said it, the fact that the concept of humanity exists in your former world is quite interesting," Samael said with a genuine smile. "I can't wait to uncover many aspects of you."
"Coming from you, it sounds more like a threat…"
Kivas took the leg. Lifted it slowly. The chitinous surface was warm to the touch, and the jagged end oozed a white-yellow sap that smelled vaguely of roasted garlic and rancid metal.
"Don't bite the hard shell," Samael warned. "Snap the end and suck the marrow."
"I want to hate you for doing this."
"Your hate will barely do anything."